Okie dokie, as promised i installed these today and already have a good idea of how they sound. No one was lying about the midbass. Someone compared them to a 10" subwoofer, which is a lil over-exagerration, but they do a very impressive job none the less.

I have them on an autotek amp with crossovers set at 75hz lowpass 12db/octave, higher end panasonic head-unit with 13band eq, autotek 4 channel bridged to 360wrms per channel gains set to 150wrms a side just under the hu's clipping point. doors have a couple layers of edead (the all butyl kind) on the inside and outter doorskins. Convoluted foam is used behind each woofer, as big a chunk as i could fit. Non-hardening modelling clay was used under the mdf baffles and the foam ring that came with the mids was used under them where they mount to the mdf. Tweeter switch was kept at 0db's as the tweets are in my sail panels and on axis because of the awesome flush swivel mounts. Here's a pic.

http://home.insightbb.com/~sdp/doorrsds.jpg

The midbass is really the diamond of the set. Never have I heard quite this much bass come from 150 watts per side. My ADS's had double that power going to them and they didn't even come close to matching the midbass output, which is part of the reason i got rid of them. I see these rsd's blending easily with any sub setup. Even if you would be running a jackhammer and couldn't get high bass extension from that sucker over 60hz you should be fine. At the 150wrms point listening to songs with strong bass you can tell they are at their limits, so keep that in mind bassheads. Not that output is lacking at this point or anything.

Deep vocal passages were expressed true to life and weren't muddy or overexagerrated in the least bit. Female voices seemed a little harsh, higher female voices being worse, -2db's at 3khz and 5khz eliminated this problem very well.

Rock listeners will be very impressed. I listened to some seether, and some other crap I downloaded that struck my fancy (256kb mp3's are all I listen to, or real cd rips at lossless, if i cant get the 256's i just dont get the song period) and they sounded fantastic. The guitar in Finger Eleven, "Paralyzer" i could feel ripping against my leg lol. I dont listen to a lot of rock, more of a hip hop guy myself although i dabble in everything including moldy oldies. :) But these definitely do rock justice like you are standing in the crowd.

I am suprised more people havent said good things about the tweeters. I found them to be very nice. They put my ADS 346cs tweets to the test, and that is a 599.99 msrp comp set. They also sound nicer to me than any of the mb quart offerings i have tried, all though not quite as detailed as the qsd tweets, but definitely not as harsh either. I would liken them more to a CDT tweeter i heard in an elemental designs edi 6500s component set, only not quite as bright as that tweeter was. They are not tiring to listen to at all, even on axis.

I would also like to mention that i have never had a component set before with so little i have to eq out to fit my tastes. -2db at 3khz and 5khz is usually just a stepping off point to getting some sets how i like them, but these sound great with just that minor adjustment.

I have to say phoenix gold did some research before puttin these out. They must be tryin to get their name back like in the early 90's or whenever they were the ****. I was another one that got mine for 87 shipped and might be pickin up a second pair in case that price goes up in the future. I would recommend these to just about everyone. And i got my RSD 12" in today and should get my second on friday, so i will let you know how those work out as soon as i pick out my amp. I am shooting for about 1500wrms for them at 1 ohm.

skydeaner

12-18-2007, 08:44 PM

after a few days now... the tweeters are very bright where they are at and i am considering moving them to see if i can ease it up a little. I will fill in more when i get them positioned better.

skydeaner

12-24-2007, 02:02 AM

Moving them to my kicks resolved the problem well. I had most tweeters in my sail panels just because they didn't stick out enough unless they were there. But these stand out very well in the kicks.

skydeaner

01-02-2008, 03:57 PM

Lasting impressions:

Very powerful speakers. When listening to heavy rap music i engage a second 12/db filter that is on my deck along with the 12/db on my amp. But that is only when i am blaring them. When listening at normal volume the 75hz 12db on my amp is just fine. Final eq tweaking i have the 3khz region lowered by about 6db's. This sounds rather extreme I know but as everyone knows the human ear is most sensitive in this area and the midrange on these is very stand-outish or "in your face" as some people might put it. That would be the only thing i would change about this set as i prefer a more laid back mid. But the eq took care of it so no worries. The 400hz range i also cut 2db's to bring down the over-bassishness of voices. This i consider to be a plus kind of lol. No speakers i have ever owned have reproduced the 500hz and below range so well. I have never had to cut anything that low before and usually ended up boosting it which almost always sounds weird. Cutting > boosting as everyone knows.

Tweets lay at their final resting spot in the kickpanels and on the -0db setting on the crossover. No harshness to them like i thought before. The mids ended up causing that as mentioned above. They are very very nice to listen to and dont fatigue my ears at all.

I will be keeping the set fo-eva! Well unless they die of course :)

I really dont think i could have made a better purchase. I just cant wait til i change out my panacrapic deck and get something a lil better for a source unit and see how big of a difference it makes. I'll probably just end up liking them even more